Mumbai Diaries season 2 review: Crowded and rushed series fails to create impact

I had high expectations from the new season of Mumbai Diaries because the first one had got so much so right. Set during the backdrop of the 26/11 attacks, it was much as a recounting of one of the most terrifying terrorist attacks in India, as the portrayal of a state-run public hospital and its public-spirited doctors doing what they do best: save lives in the face of tremendous odds.

Season 2 (eight episodes, 45-50 minutes each), also from Nikkhil Advani and his team, didn’t do it for me. Most of the chief dramatis personae are back, and this time the crisis they have to deal with is based on the flooding of Mumbai in 2005, during which the city-that-never-sleeps ground to a halt. More than a thousand people died. In the midst of the death and devastation, there were also hundreds of stories of hope and a city coming together to save its own: in the fictional Bombay General Hospital, the flood is part of the story, but neither the chaos reigning outside, nor inside its dimly lit corridors, comes together as an impactful whole.

Dr Kaushik Oberoi (Mohit Raina) is brooding over a court case which questions not just his competence but his patriotism; his pregnant wife (Tina Desai) is both happy and apprehensive about the new addition to the family. TV reporter Mansi Hirani (Shreya Dhanwantry) is busy fixing nails in Oberoi’s coffin, not knowing that soon she will see the light. Back in the grim bowels of the hospital, social service head Dr Chitra Das (Konkona Sen Sharma) is being confronted with the ghosts of her past, even as head nurse Cherian (Balaji Gauri) is rapping out orders in her irascible but efficient manner, and head of hospital Dr Subramaniam (Prakash Belawadi) is trying to keep it all together, delivering a lecture here, and a homily there. Trainee interns Sujata, Diya and Ahaan (Mrunmayee Deshpande, Natasha Bharadwaj, Satyajeet Dubey) are lurching from one crisis to another, hollow-eyed with exhaustion. And there’s the fear of the outbreak of contagious disease, but it’s never realised.

A burns case is taking up their time. The victim is scarred not just on his body, but in his soul. Or is it her? The rescue of a child who has potentially been abused causes a stir. An abusive husband is lurking, just waiting to pounce on his petrified wife. An uncouth moneybags is roaming around, threatening everyone. All these strands, with the new additions of Parambrata Chattopadhyaya and Sanjay Narvekar amongst others, add to the chaos. Somehow it worked in the series’ favour in the first season. This time around, everything feels too crowded and rushed; instead of urgency, there’s ramped-up hysteria and choppiness. The moments which work are quieter, with the characters talking to, not at each other, but there are not enough of them.

Mumbai Diaries season 2 cast: Mohit Raina, Konkona Sen Sharma, Prakash Belawadi, Shreya Dhanwantry, Tina Desai, Balaji Gauri, Mrunmayee Deshpande, Natasha Bharadwaj, Satyajeet Dubey

Mumbai Diaries season 2 director: Nikkhil Advani